Chapter 2 - A Blast From The Past
1363 Words
Ava had built an empire of her own. She had walked away from a promising law career and launched her boutique wedding planning firm from the ground up. She transformed her pain into perfection, her heartache into glamour, crafting unforgettable weddings for clients who expected nothing short of magic in the delivery of their dream weddings and events. She worked eighteen-hour days, curated flowers like poetry, and turned love stories into art.
But the one love story she could never plan—never predict—was her own.
She had buried Nathan Hart in the past.
Or so she thought.
The week had started like any other—client meetings, floral consultations, a few back-to-back venue visits. Nothing seemed out of place. But something was coming. She could feel it. A ripple beneath the surface. The kind of shift that unsettles the air before a storm.
And it would arrive, not with a grand gesture or a confrontation—but with a quiet sentence from Annalise that would change everything.
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One rainy evening in May 2013, a day now scorched into her memory, everything fell apart. Prom night—their supposed big moment. The night she’d imagined for months. But when the time came, Nathan didn’t show.
Instead, he sent an email.
Cold. Detached. A few short lines that unraveled two years of whispered promises and secret dreams.
“I can’t go with you tonight. My family wouldn’t be okay with it. It’s just not the right time. Maybe it’s better if we lay low.”
She had stood in her bedroom, dress pressed and ready, corsage unopened, hope clinging to her like perfume. But the silence that followed was louder than any rejection.
And then came the final blow.
He showed up at prom.
With someone else.
Smiling. Laughing. Taking pictures like she had never existed. As if the two years they’d spent wrapped up in hidden affection, late-night phone calls, and fragile plans were nothing but a footnote in his life.
That night—May 25th—something in her cracked. Not just her heart. Her sense of worth. Her trust.
He never called to explain. Never offered a real apology. And when she finally confronted him, he dismissed it with a shrug and a lie: “We were never serious.”
The shame was unbearable. She had collapsed in the tiny bathroom of her dorm, shaking, humiliated beyond words. Her pride, her trust, her self-worth, it all crumbled. For the first time in her life, Ava felt truly weak. She couldn't bring herself to attend classes, couldn't face the whispers or the pity in people’s eyes. She went home and shut the world out, cancelling interviews, missing finals, crying until her mother’s arms were the only thing that reminded her she was still whole.
That heartbreak lingered like an infection. Not always visible, but always there. A quiet ache. A Phantom Wound. And though she rebuilt—though she rose like a phoenix and forged a career many envied—some part of her had never quite healed. She had dated, occasionally, half-heartedly. But she never trusted anyone enough to let them all the way in. Not again.
She told herself she was fine. She had her work, her mother, her small but fierce circle of friends. She had built something real from the rubble. And yet…there were nights she lay awake, wondering what it would feel like to be held again. To be chosen. To be loved without question or condition.
But those thoughts were dangerous, and Ava didn’t entertain them for long. She was no one’s victim. Not anymore. She had survived the worst heartbreak of her life. She had clawed her way back. And she had sworn—never again would she let herself be so vulnerable, so exposed, so powerless.
The past was behind her. Or so she thought.
But fate, as it often does, had other plans.
She walked through the office doors to the familiar scent of peonies and freshly brewed espresso. The reception area, warm and minimalist with red velvet chairs and soft lighting, immediately eased her morning tension.
“Morning, boss,” Annalise called out from behind the reception desk, holding up a steaming mug. “Double shot, extra foam. You looked like you needed it.”
“You’re a lifesaver.” Ava took the cup gratefully and dropped her purse on the sleek marble counter. “Tell me about this mystery client.”
Annalise pushed her glasses up and spun her laptop toward Ava. “The email came late last night. Mrs. Gonzalez recommended us personally. The bride’s name is Camille Fairchild —yes, that Fairchild. Influencer, fashion heiress, daughter of the real estate tycoon. She wants a spring wedding, fast turnaround, top-tier everything.”
Ava raised an eyebrow. Talk about a blast from the past. “And the groom?”
Annalise hesitated. “I thought you’d never ask. Please see for yourself.”
She clicked into the attached brief. Ava leaned forward, reading casually—until her eyes landed on a name that made her heart stop.
Groom: Nathaniel Hart.
The coffee cup wobbled in her hand. She set it down slowly, pulse accelerating. “No,” she whispered.
Annalise stood, concerned. “You okay?”
Ava didn’t answer right away. She just stared at the screen, her past crashing over her like an unexpected tide.
Nathan Hart.
Her first love.
Her college sweetheart.
The boy she used to dream about during boring algebra lectures, his initials scrawled over the margins of her notebook like a secret only her heart understood. The man she had once imagined standing at the end of the aisle, eyes shining, hand outstretched, promising forever.
They had whispered about marriage in the quiet hours of the night, dreaming up futures with brownstones and babies and lazy Sunday mornings. She’d picked out their song, the names of their children, the china pattern she thought his mother would hate.
He was it. The one.
Until he wasn’t.
She reminisced at the thought of how used to walk her to lectures with two cups of coffee and a crooked smile, who once promised she was the only future he saw. The boy who made her believe in magic—real magic, the kind that could grow even in the most ordinary places. They were inseparable. Best friends, lovers, co-dreamers. They had talked about their future like it was already written—marriage, brownstone, two kids and a golden retriever named Harold. She had bought a dress for senior prom, ivory silk with little pearl buttons down the back. She thought he was going to propose that night. Or at least tell her that the life they kept dreaming of was about to begin.
But instead, he sent her a cold email.
Said he couldn’t go with her. Claimed his family would disapprove.
He left her for Camille Fairchild. A name that sounded like trust funds and private yachts. A girl Ava had seen in passing on campus, always dressed like the cover of a fashion magazine, always surrounded by the kind of airbrushed perfection Ava could never compete with. Nathan hadn’t just chosen someone else—he had chosen her. Publicly. Proudly.
And just like that, Ava was erased.
No explanation. No goodbye. No closure. Just the quiet sound of her heart breaking somewhere between the slow songs and the click of Camille’s designer heels.
She had buried that night deep. Told herself she was over it. That she had risen from it. That heartbreak had made her sharper, stronger, unshakable. She built a life with no room for fragility, no space for past ghosts.
Until now.
Until the email.
A new client. A Manhattan wedding. Summer.
Bride: Camille Fairchild.
Groom: Nathan Hart.
And the request?
They wanted Ava to plan the wedding.
The same boy who shattered her.
The same girl who stood beside him as he did it.
Now expected her to stitch together the fairytale she was once promised.
And Ava—who had spent years crafting perfect happily-ever-afters for everyone but herself—was being asked to build theirs.
- Writer
